Collective Celebration as a Vehicle for Local Economic Development: A Michigan Case

This paper argues that collective celebrations offer opportunities for local groups to experiment with social change. During a recent period of economic crisis in industry and agriculture, residents of a rural county in Michigan built on distinctive local resources to create a celebration that helped their county overcome past rivalries among its small communities and define the county itself as a viable unit for local development efforts. Renewed conceptions of local identity, social relationships, and countywide organizational cooperation, nurtured in the context of the celebration, were channelled into the county's emerging development organization. Results suggest that the expressive form provided by collective celebration can generate valuable resources for local economic recovery.